Concealed Communities: The People at the Margins

The “concealed communities” of our title are the people archaeologists have often labeled as “marginal.” Archaeologists writing about both prehistoric and historic periods have commonly made a range of assumptions about margins and marginality, and their discussions have often categorized marginality as ecological, economic, or socio-political. Whilst it has been common to privilege one or other of these categories in order to explain how societies worked, they are rarely mutually exclusive. In addition, since marginality is relative, virtually any group might be made marginal depending on people’s perspectives in the past or present. Sometimes marginality can be imposed (economically or politically), and sometimes even actively chosen. Defining the “margin” is a complex business, and the term needs sensitive, context-orientated use to make it useful for archaeologists.     

Tapa Cloths and Beaters: Tradition,Innovation and the Agency of the Bounty Women in Shaping a New Culture on Pitcairn Island from 1790 to 1850

This article examines the tapa cloths made by the women associated with the Bounty, who sailed to Pitcairn Island with the Bounty mutineers to create a new society and culture. Traditional literature reveals a male-dominated narrative, which ignores any female agency in the Bounty-Pitcairn story, and merely objectifies them. The tapa cloths the women produced reveal much about their origins and their efforts to maintain the traditions of their homelands while initiating innovative designs that appear to have provided a sense of unique identity in the Anglo-Polynesian children of the Polynesian women and their European husbands. Given their objectification in the generally accepted historical narrative, it is ironic that the women reveal themselves through the objects that they made. By compiling data about the tapa cloths (kind of cloth, plants used, techniques, colour and patterning, quality), details of tradition and innovation emerge and reveal much about these women and the knowledge they passed down the generations through their daughters.     

Les Maladies de L’âme Comme Lieu de Rencontre Entre Médecine et Philosophie dans les Textes Arabes Médiévaux (IXe-XIe Siècle)

In the medical texts written in Arabic between the 9^th and the 11^th centuries, the diseases of the soul played an important part in the physicians’ reflection on the nature of the soul and its relationship to the body. In the 9^th and the beginning of the 10^th century, this medical anthropology was shaped by a tradition that was both Platonic and Galenic. But in the 10^th, the influence of Aristotle became most prominent in Arabic philosophy, and as a result the main lines of this medical anthropology were questioned, as was the role of medical knowledge and its relation to natural philosophy.     

Middle‐east,Midwest

Barbara C. Asward, ed. Arabic‐Speaking Communities in American Cities. New York: A joint publication of the Center for Migration Studies of New York, Inc., and the Association of Arab‐American University Graduates, Inc., 1974. vii + 191 pp. Appendix.     

Critical Geographies with the State: The Problem of Social Vulnerability and the Politics of Engaged Research

Abstract: State interventions to govern social vulnerability highlight the complexity of contemporary states, marked by neoliberal agenda but also by progressive interventions and the desire for effectiveness. This paper draws on collaborative research with government agencies on social vulnerability in the Hunter region to assess the desirability of undertaking critical geographies with the state. We see states as contested terrains invested with the institutional capacity to mobilise diverse political projects. We argue that critical research in partnership with states is possible, as are mobilisations of the agency of state institutions to promote progressive policy development. The paper explores how we might use engaged research to intersect with the production and circulation of texts, technologies and practices within the state apparatus to achieve desirable change. While critical research with the state involves uncertainties and compromise, with no permanent resolutions, we conclude that states must remain centred in our critical conversations and praxis. In this paper we advance the case for the critical possibilities of policy‐oriented research with the state. We reflect on experiences of an engaged research project with state government agencies in the NSW Hunter Region involving the production and use of the texts and technologies as state interventions in social vulnerability. Working through the project's reflexive, collaborative methodologies and our use of critical GIS, we highlight the creation of opportunities to change how the components of social vulnerability were conceptualised, contest policymakers’ view of what was “relevant”, and shift framing rationalities and resultant state practices. As such the paper contributes to our knowledge of strategic research practices for pursuing critical, progressive projects with the state. Such engagement involves uncertainties and contingent compromise. Yet, as terrains of contestation wherein diverse political projects are assembled and propelled, states must remain centred in our critical conversations and in our critical praxis.     

EXITS FROM HOMEOWNERSHIP: THE EFFECTS OF RACE,ETHNICITY, AND INCOME*

ABSTRACT This paper examines the extent to which populations experiencing low homeownership rates in the U.S. also experience high homeownership exit rates. We determine whether low‐income Hispanic and black households that achieve homeownership are as likely as white and high‐income households to sustain it. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics spanning the years 1970–2005, we find that low‐income homeowners consistently have higher homeownership exit rates, Hispanic households have higher raw exit rates prior to but not subsequent to 1997, and a black/white sustainability gap appears to arise post‐1997.